Sunday, April 20, 2008

A YOUNGER ME

It’s very strange, coming across these old pieces of writing and getting a glimpse into my old self; I’m glad I covered some of my thoughts. I remember me, at twenty-odd, standing in a bar, trying to capture remnants of old politics but nothing survived because they hadn’t been written down. I keep telling Amazon that she will regret not writing. So she has scattered bits of diaries (which are better than nothing) but the laptop makes all the difference; now it’s easy to nip in and type a quick note, and Bibo will save her. I can just see her old self cackling at the language of messages and outrageous statements of her twirling twenties.

I recently found Musician’s old diary amongst my stuff that survived the fire, and the skip; from when he was about seven. There was a line in it that said, ‘I hate Maggy Facha. She takes my mums muny.’ There are only a few pages covered. I don’t even have that from my childhood so whatever is dragged out of memory will be fashioned/tainted by this old head; and the thoughts and ideas are lost forever. My young life was spent reading instead of writing. Just imagine that teenager; I know that I searched for the right man to de-flower me for a good couple of years before he turned up, in bed beside me, sleeping; we woke together and consummated something in the middle of the night – and there were definitely no rainbows or fireworks...but it would’ve been very interesting to hear it directly from that me.

All the school reports I’d saved have disappeared; I wanted to embarrass my children while they berated their own kids for lack of attention, grubby and untidy work etc, but they were lost in the fire. So now, I am collecting biscuit tins to keep important bits in; mind you, at the moment said tins are full of crafty stuff and important documents are still lying around, unsafe in the world. I am so obsessed with memories and losing old pieces of our lives that I have multi-copied all the photos and my writing onto discs that are spread around everyone’s houses. All the old negatives are missing too; I always meant to check and sort them out.

I wish I had kept a record of illnesses and injuries; over the years the lives of three terrible children kind of blend and fade into each other that I only remember broken bones and a few stitches but not who had Chicken Pox or German measles. I began keeping diaries in the mid 80s but it was all pretty sporadic and there were an awful lot of hangovers and drunken ramblings (they’ve gone too). I don’t think there were many intelligent musings in them, so not a huge loss. If only I had been the perfect mother; I might have written up amusing daily reports to go down in family history – instead of grabbing as much personal time as I could while they slept. Things might’ve been very different with this old head on that younger me.

4 comments:

duckling said...

I'm exactly the same Irene... I've got over 8000 emails in my Inbox, going back 5 years - I never delete any of them. Would be so upset if I lost them.

The biscuit tins sound like a very good idea!

slippingthroughtheworld said...

8000! my god. you should print them out and make a little book. x

i mean, a big book.

Marla D said...

Aw..I lost all my eldest daughter's birth stuff in a house move & was gutted..the only diaries I have are from my pregnancies..all 3 of them..but they seem to be mostly about what I ate! x

slippingthroughtheworld said...

know exactly how you feel marla. i seem to have lost all pictures of me as a teenager and young woman (probably in house moves). you feel like kicking yourself. x